The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration by Wilkinson Alec

Author:Wilkinson, Alec [Wilkinson, Alec]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Travel, Adventure, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780307957696
Google: krMxPW5usvQC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 13530897
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2012-01-24T07:00:00+00:00

32

On July 24, for the first time in two years, they saw something other than “that never-ending white line of the horizon”—land. “We had almost given up our belief in it!” Nansen wrote. They had seen it earlier on several occasions, slightly darker than the ice and rising above it, but had concluded that it was a cloud. It seemed close enough that they thought they might reach it that afternoon. Instead it took thirteen days.

On August 3, a Saturday, Nansen wrote, “Inconceivable toil. We never could go on with it were it not for the fact that we must.” Two days later Johansen was picking up a rope by his kayak when he saw something crouched by one end of the boat and thought it was a dog. Instantly “he received a cuff on the ear which made him see fireworks.” It was a bear, and the blow knocked him on his back. Johansen grabbed the bear by the throat. Meanwhile, Nansen, who had his back to them and hadn’t seen the attack, was trying to pull his sledge and kayak out of the water. Johansen called out, “Take the gun,” which was in the kayak. Nansen turned and saw Johansen on the ground, and lost his grip on his kayak, which slipped into the water. He was struggling to recover it, when he heard Johansen say quietly, “You must look sharp if you want to be in time.” The dogs distracted the bear briefly, and Nansen’s shot hit it behind one ear. From its tracks they could see how it had stalked them.

On August 7 they finally stood at the edge of the ice. “The large head of a seal came up, and then disappeared silently; but soon more appeared. It is very reassuring to know that we can procure food at any minute we liked.” Two dogs were left, one on each sledge, but there was no room to carry them on the kayaks—beforehand they had traveled through leads, but now they would be crossing open water. “We were sorry to part with them; we had become very fond of these two survivors. Faithful and enduring, they had followed us the whole journey through; and, now that better times had come, they must say farewell to life. Destroy them in the same way as the others, we could not we sacrificed a cartridge on each of them. I shot Johansen’s, and he shot mine.”

That evening, having reached the island, Nansen wrote, “The delight of the feeling of being able to jump from block to block of granite is indescribable.”

In the following days they shot several walruses, which were disgusting to dress. As the dead animals floated in the shallow channels, Nansen and Johansen had to lie on them and reach with their knives as far as they could beneath the water. Getting wet and cold was disagreeable, but the worse part was being soaked by the blubber and the blood while wearing clothes that they would have to wear all winter.

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